When Scott Piercy was battling for the lead in the FBR Open last week, the network cameras captured him applying a smiley face to mark his ball. Viewers must have thought it cute, but trivial.

They don't know how much that happy image changed Piercy's golf and life.

In the middle of last summer, if that ball had reflected Piercy's mood, he'd have needed a volleyball on which to pen the depth of his unhappiness. There wasn't a frown big enough.

On a night after playing in a pro-am in Wayne Gretzky's Nationwide Tour event in Canada, Piercy said he was so ticked off he literally couldn't speak. He'd run out of ways to berate himself.

“That was the turning point,” Piercy was saying yesterday as he played a practice round at Torrey Pines, where the San Diego State alum will get his first start in the Buick Invitational beginning tomorrow.

“I wasn't having any fun. I had a real bad attitude. I told myself, 'I'm playing golf, I'm playing a game. I've got to have some fun.' So the next day, I went out there with only one goal: to not get mad at myself.”

In a smart-alecky reminder to himself that morning, he applied the smiley face to his ball.

Piercy tested himself early that day, making two early bogeys. He never erupted, only exploded – with nine birdies in the last 12 holes. “It could have been 12 out of 12,” he remembered with a smile.

“That was the day I decided that my attitude was the biggest thing holding me back,” he said.

A month later on the Nationwide, Piercy went on the greatest playing run of his life. He won twice in a three-week span, rocketing from 123rd to 12th on the money list, guaranteeing himself his first card on the PGA Tour for 2009. He ended the year ninth in earnings.

In Piercy's first win in Wichita, he set the tournament record at 22-under. Two weeks later, he came from four shots back with a final-round 64 to capture the Northeast Pennsylvania Classic.

“You feel like you should win every week,” Piercy said. “That's how I feel. It definitely felt good. Through the years when you don't have success, maybe there's that doubt in the back of your head, because you haven't done it. When you win, that's all erased.”

There has been no letdown now that he's on the PGA Tour. In his first three starts in Hawaii, the Bob Hope and Scottsdale, Piercy tied for 12th, 19th and sixth, respectively. With $341,891 in earnings, he's 15th on the money list.

Playing on a sponsor's exemption last week in the FBR, he was the leader going into the last nine holes, but made four bogeys and finished three strokes off the pace.

Piercy, 30, is officially a rookie, but that doesn't begin to describe his experience. He's been like the garage band playing in dingy clubs that makes it huge and is dubbed an “overnight” success. Before this year, he had played in 20 PGA Tour events the hard way, by Monday qualifying.

“He's been playing well for six or seven years. He just needed the opportunity to get on tour,” said Ryan Donovan, the current San Diego State head golf coach who played with Piercy in college and remains one of his best friends. “He knows he belongs, and he knows he can play with anybody.”

Donovan laughed.

“He thinks he's probably the best player in the world,” he said.

At SDSU, Piercy's confidence was well-known. Director of Golf Dale Walker said Piercy was decidedly cocky, but not in an obnoxious way. He wasn't the greatest ball striker or putter, but he made up for it with quiet attitude.

“When he got the lead in a tournament, he was unstoppable,” Walker said. “He was just that confident.”

Attitude didn't pay the bills, however.

By 2007, six years out of SDSU, Piercy was beaten down by the mini-tour grind. He was married with two kids, had $5,000 in his bank account and owed $38,000 on a credit card with a $39,000 limit.

“I was busted, pretty much,” he said.

In his hometown of Las Vegas, he entered the $2 million, winner-take-all Ultimate Game, sponsored by casino magnate Steve Wynn. With an aching left wrist, he advanced to the finals, and playing against a caddie from the course hosting the tournament, Piercy overcame a three-stroke deficit with five to play and won.

The victory took the pressure off. After paying off his backers, Piercy ended up with $975,000. It allowed him to take six months off, let his body heal and his mind rest. When he qualified for the Nationwide Tour in 2008, he was a different player, although it would take that midseason attitude adjustment to make him a complete player.

The Ultimate Game story will live on for years because it makes for such good copy. But it's hardly what Piercy wants to be remembered for.

“After I won in Wichita, they asked me about (the Ultimate Game),” he said. “I told them that by winning that week, and being on the way to getting my card, it was worth more than $2 million.